The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony in Southeast Asia. It was formed in the early 19th century from the merger of the Dutch colony in the East Indies and the Dutch holdings in the Malay Archipelago. The Dutch East Indies colony was dissolved in 1949, after the Indonesian National Revolution.
The first recorded visit by a European to the region was by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in 1521. The Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, …